“As your worship,” added the wife, her face beaming with curiosity, “does not seem able to tell us anything about yourself, can you not tell us something about what is going on just now, for instance, something about this wonderful marriage of which my husband speaks?”
“Yes,” rejoined her husband, with a self-important air, “that’s the very latest news. Within a month the viceroy’s son will marry the chancellor’s daughter.”
“You doubt it, sir! I assure you that the thing is certain. I have it on the best authority. The fellow who told me had it from Mr. Poël, the favorite servant of the noble Baron Thorwick,--that is, the noble Count Danneskiold. Can any storm have troubled the waters within the week? Has this grand match been broken off?”
“I think so,” replied the young man, smiling.
“If that is so, sir, I am wrong. Never light the fire to fry the fish before it is in the net. But have they really quarrelled? Who told you so?”
“Nobody,” said Ordener. “I merely imagined so.”
At this frank confession the fisherman could not help transgressing the laws of Norwegian courtesy by a loud burst of laughter.
“A thousand pardons, sir. But it is easy to see that you are indeed a traveller, and probably a stranger. Do you fancy that things will turn out as you happen to wish, and that the sky will be clear or cloudy at your caprice?”
Here the fisherman, well versed in the affairs of the nation, as all Norse peasants are, began to explain to Ordener why this marriage could not fail to take place: it was essential to the interests of the d’Ahlefeld family; the viceroy could not refuse the king, who desired it; besides, it was said that the future husband and wife were very much in love. In a word, fisher Braal could not doubt that the match would come off; he only wished he was as sure of killing next day that confounded dogfish which infested Master-Bick pond.
Ordener was little inclined to carry on a political discussion with so uncouth a statesman, and was delighted when the arrival of another guest relieved him of all embarrassment.
“It is he; it is my brother!” cried old Maase.
And no less event than the arrival of her brother could have diverted her from the rapt admiration with which she listened to her husband’s lengthy discourse.